I’m also happy to say that my story, On the train to Otsu Station will be included in an upcoming charity anthology, New Sun Rising. Proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to charities providing earthquake and tsunami relief in Japan. The anthology was sidetracked for a while, but is now in gear and I’ll post a link for purchase when it’s available.

In the meantime, here is a link to information on the ongoing effort to publish:

As for the rumors, I will have a poem published in Blue Fifth Review sometime in May and my story, Waiting for the Wolf will appear in print sometime soon in the Canadian journal, Lost in Thought. In the meantime, I’m working on two novels, one of which should be finished in November of this year.

(Flash Fiction)
Once, in August, while visiting my brother’s grave in Tucson, I drove slowly up the roadway between the rows of plots, trying to remember exactly where he was buried. The graveyard is a maze, but I knew there was a tree beside an adjacent road, a wide mesquite, big as an oak, whose skinny leaves provide a permissive mix of shade and sunlight, like a bamboo curtain or a green sieve. I saw the tree and a woman who was kneeling at a grave in the shade of it. When she saw me approach, she stood, walked quickly to her car, and began driving slowly away.

When I parked my car and walked over to my brother’s grave, I saw fresh flowers and wondered if she’d left them there. I looked up. The woman had stopped some distance away and was out of her car, staring back at me. I watched for a long time and began to walk toward her, thinking to ask if she was the one who left the flowers and did she love my brother Carlos. Did she know who he really was, and why he was even on the earth? If she knew that, then maybe she could tell me why anybody is here, why I’m here.

I never reached her, though. She turned, got back into her car and drove off.

My father later told me that once every year someone leaves flowers on Carlos’ grave on a certain day in August. My parents do not know who it is, the exact day, or the meaning of it, nor have they ever seen anyone else at his graveside. It is not his birthday, nor is it the anniversary of his death. My father said whoever it was has not missed the day in over fifteen of the years since Carlos died.

It must have been the woman I saw. She was tall and blond. I remember she wore a summer dress the color of mangoes.

A charity anthology collection with 30 stories by authors from around the globe. Profits from the sale of this book will go to support exploited, neglected and abused children. All proceeds go to the charities PROTECT: the National Association to Protect Children, and Children 1st U.K. (photo donated by Danielle Tunstall Photography)

Literary Activism

I’ve contributed a short story, Butterfly Fingers, which appears in this anthology. Please support this effort as all proceeds go to a truly worthy cause.

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Cormac McCarthy has transcended the ordinary boundaries of genre and become his own and magnificent category. "Blood Meridian," with its brilliant characterizations, harsh metaphor and rich language may be the finest American novel written to date.

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